At first I thought there was something wrong with the "leg" of the table near the wall, but this screencap from "Mirror, Mirror" clearly revealed that that's the way it is (although I could invoke the "overscan argument"). Is that the shot from which you extracted the table support or did you have a better one at your disposal?

At first I thought there was something wrong with the "leg" of the table near the wall, but this screencap from "Mirror, Mirror" clearly revealed that that's the way it is (although I could invoke the "overscan argument"). Is that the shot from which you extracted the table support or did you have a better one at your disposal?

If you look closely at the end of the table on the bottom left side of the screen cap, you can see the slenderer support underneath the table. Although, in-universe, it can't be the same exact table as the one on the Enterprise, I feel it still backs up the validity of the table in my screenshots, being that it's the same table in reality.

After all, seems logical that Starfleet would get all its tables in bulk from one manufacturer! I'm sure these tables got shipped out to starships and starbases across the Federation.

^^ Solid evidence that even those TOS Trekkers that still use LaserDiscs and 4:3 TVs with overscan can see what the table has to look like.

The example from "The Menagerie" is a good and helpful one, too (because theoretically one could argue that there are really strange things going on in the "Mirror, Mirror" universe - like the magical bathroom Marla changes clothes in even though there's a walking corridor where that bathroom would have to be...).

Tweaked the distortion of the glass panel so it was a little more drastic.

Hey, GSchnitzer, I'm having trouble lighting this cabinet and think I could do it better. Do you have any idea on how they lit it during the show, or how the Phase II lighting crew lights it? I don't see any visible lights inside the cabinet. Perhaps they lit it from behind? Or there were lights inside the cabinet on the side we never see?

I always thought the thinner leg by the wall was for "attaching" to it and they didn't need the same support as the one opposite the wall.

Click to expand...

Nice explanation which makes sense "in-universe", IMHO.

Probably made of light materials, such tables would otherwise become projectiles once the ship hits stormy "weather" and I don't think the sickbay patients would be too happy about that.

Also this definitely adds a maritime touch, since on most ships you also have tables and the likes fixed and secured (just shows again how much thought they put even into trivial things like tables to enhance the illusion of being on a ship and not in a studo set ).

Tweaked the distortion of the glass panel so it was a little more drastic.

Hey, GSchnitzer, I'm having trouble lighting this cabinet and think I could do it better. Do you have any idea on how they lit it during the show, or how the Phase II lighting crew lights it? I don't see any visible lights inside the cabinet. Perhaps they lit it from behind? Or there were lights inside the cabinet on the side we never see?

Click to expand...

So, the corrugated glass is on both sides of this only-as thick-as-the-depth-of-the-wall cabinet. Only the side on the INT. SICK BAY EXAMINATION ROOM slides open--hence the small "open the sliding glass" push button on the wall in the INT. SICK BAY EXAMINATION ROOM, and none over on the INT. SICK BAY WARD ROOM side. The corrugation runs up and down--except for in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," when it ran left to right:

You can see that for this second pilot episode, the cabinet was lit from behind with bluish gel--but this was an exception to what would generally become the rule; it was normally lit from behind with an orange-ish gel.

The light is simply light shining from a C-stand and covered with the appropriate-colored gels. The are no interior lights in the cabinet--just light from behind, which makes things in the cabinet somewhat silhouetted.

Although they almost always used orange gels, they did switch it a couple of times. It was bluish in the aforementioned "Where No Man Has Gone Before." But it "The Man Trap," they used that same bluish motif when the set had to be re-dressed into the INT. BOTANY LAB set. (They had to do something to make it look like a different room.)

They used the blue motif again when the INT. SICK BAY EXAMINATION ROOM set was used as an operating room in "Operation: Annihilate:"

And it was given that blue motif again when it became Sick Bay for a different Starship (the U.S.S. Defiant) in "The Tholian Web:"

It looks like you are using the "Mudd's Women layout for all the bottles and stuff in the cabinet:

If I were decorating your set, I think I would use a layout more akin to the layout from "The Enemy Within." It's one of just two episodes where we actually saw the cabinet opened to get stuff out of it. It also would permit populating it with two Saurian Brandy bottles way over on the bottom left--and a couple of the little blue pyramid brandy glasses. If you go that route, since the bottles won't fit on the bottom shelf (they are too tall), you would need to have the glass shelf that the bottles would otherwise bump into extend only part way across the cabinet, resting on a gold/orange-ish cylindrical thing. The shelves themselves are glass (if that impacts how you would render the shelves.) Also, I think I would put some of the ubiquitous trigger sprayers in the cabinet, too, to work in some color.)

Lastly, I think I would put in even a tiny bit more distortion from the corrugated glass.

Many of Star Trek's props and set decorations--and even costumes and hair and make-up--work on almost a subliminal level. Deela the Scalosian seems sexy; Nilz Baris seems officious. The Engineering room seems powerful. Sick Bay seems scientific and clinical; every place on the Enterprise seems "unworldly" and futuristic.

One of the simplest ways of conveying this "unworldliness" or futuristic feeling is by making props and set decorations in odd shapes. We've seen round (instead of rectangular) playing cards on Star Trek; we've seen odd hexagonal and boomerang wall decorations. We've seen that the "ray generator" is an odd shape with three odd prongs at the top; we've seen that Mr. Scott's engineering circuit "jumpers" were oddly-shaped little building blocks. So, Star Trek art design is founded on the principle of odd shapes.

With this as a set up, there is a set decoration (well, two set decorations, really, since we always see them together), that do nothing more than decorate the set in the background and have an odd shape. They don't really have a name, and they aren't ever really touched by anyone so they aren't really props--merely set decorations.

These two white cone things have a wider base portion and a narrower but taller center portion. You can see them behind the "shower door" corrugated glass cabinet that is built into the wall between the Sickbay Examination room and the Sickbay Ward Room. (This is the same cabinet where Dr. McCoy kept his Saurian brandy bottles in "The Enemy Within.")

In fact, they are in nearly every single episode, starting with the very first regular production episode "The Corbomite Maneuver." Here's a shot from "The Corbomite Maneuver" (from the "Exam Room" side of the cabinet):

And here's a shot of these "white cone things" from the "Ward Room" side of the cabinet from "Journey to Babel:"

And just to show how little some things change even after three years and seventy-nine episodes, here's a shot from the final production episode "Turnabout Intruder:"

You can see that these "white cone things" are in the cabinet along with some other flasks and oddly-shaped containers and cylinders. (We never see the cabinet opened other than in "The Enemy Within," so we don't get a very good look at any of these things.)

These "white cone things" do make a couple of other appearances in Star Trek besides showing up in Dr. McCoy's cabinet. They were used to decorate George Samuel Kirk's laboratory and office on Deneva. (In fact, it looks like several bottles and such that normally live in Dr. McCoy's cabinet were pulled out and used for this one shot):

The "white cone things" make another appearance later in "Operation--Annihilate!" in Dr. McCoy's laboratory--although they are upended into a couple of other pots or containers from Dr. McCoy's cabinet:

So what are these odd shaped things, anyway?

To most people, it's just an odd shape. But to folks who are musically inclined, you might recognize this item as a trombone mute. The mute gets inserted into the bell of the trombone to create a muted jazzy sound for the trombone.

There are lots of different styles of trombone mutes--some fancy, some not so fancy, some made out of brass themselves. These particular mutes used in Star Trek were made by the Humes & Berg Manufacturing Company, Inc. in East Chicago, Indiana. They are "Stonelined Mutes." Here's a shot of one:

To prep them for Star Trek, all the labels need to be scraped off, the small cork wedges up near the top of the cone need to be cut or sanded off and the metal scalloped edge around top edge of the larger "base" needs to be ground down to make a smooth top edge. The red paint at the base and tip need to be painted over to give the device (or whatever the heck this thing is) a smooth, even, glossy white finish.

Here are my two Humes & Berg Stonelined trombone mutes all tricked out to look like Star Trek "white cone things," ready to be put into Dr. McCoy's cabinet in Sickbay the next time I'm at our studio in Port Henry, New York. They will probably just sit on the shelf in the cabinet, never to be seen clearly or even touched really:

If you ever want to put together an Internet production that is supposed to look like the original 1960s Star Trek, I think anyone on the Star Trek Phase II production team in just about any capacity could provide a word to the wise: the devil is in the details.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments about props or set decorations.

Thanks for your informative replies, GSchnitzer. I had actually seen your Phase II forum post about the trombone mutes, and used the photos you provided to get the shape just right. Again, great research and info. I had wondered for years what those things were!

I'm working on a shader material right now that will add a blur effect to the corrugated glass. Unfortunately its not as easy as one would think, and requires a good bit of programming to get it to work, unlike the linear distortion which was easy. I think this, combined with the distortion effect, will yield a more accurate result.

I'm also gonna add spray bottles, etc to the cabinet once I model them. And it would seem incomplete without the Saurian Brandy. Gotta add that as well. "I said give me the brandy!"

Got the ward room layout fleshed out today. Can't wait to model those beds! Fun times for me ahead. Stay tuned for updates.

That's interesting... I suppose I never really thought about it, but I assume this is the only time we see a bed posed in a "sitting up" position. I suppose it makes perfect sense that the hospital beds of the future would have this capacity. Will you include an animation of the mattress folding up like this?

That's interesting... I suppose I never really thought about it, but I assume this is the only time we see a bed posed in a "sitting up" position. I suppose it makes perfect sense that the hospital beds of the future would have this capacity. Will you include an animation of the mattress folding up like this?

--Alex

Click to expand...

Perhaps. I don't have a lot of animation experience, but UDK has an excellent animation and physics engine. Just a matter of me learning the gist.

I tweaked the cabinet a bit more. Here's the last shot before moving on.

I was unable to get a true blur effect looking good for the glass panel, but I upped the linear distortion and I think that will have to do unless I have a breakthrough later (advanced shaders are a little beyond me at this point). I also tweaked the lighting so it appears to be backlit, as feek61 and GSchnitzer informed me they actually did on the show.

This is great stuff. It's fun to see the sets from angles that are different from the angles that were used on the original series. I like this high shot; it's reminiscent of the scene with Kirk, Spock, and Commissioner Bele drinking together towards the end of "Let That Bet Your Last Battlefield."

I have some write-ups of Saurian brandy bottles and the small, blue pyramidal brandy snifter glasses that lived in the cabinet. I hope they can be of value to you. Also, I've compiled a lot of information on stuff I simply have not gotten around to writing up yet. Let me know if there's anything you need; maybe I can help you with it.

A few other things I'd add if I were King of decorating your sets: I think I'd put those small instruments stands on either side of the head of the exam table, I'd probably place the instrument tray over on the side of the exam table where it gets mounted (occasionally) into those two otherwise mysterious holes, and, lastly, I'd probably include Lieutenant Galway's "that's a stupid place to hang a mirror" from "The Deadly Years" if you haven't put it in yet. (I can't tell from this view.)

I noticed that now there's place for two chairs and I think that not only looks but "feels" better. I'd dare to say that nobody in real life would put a chair facing an empty wall (unless there's a panel or viewscreen...) but a chair near the wall from where you can see he entire room and, of course, the door.

Great thing you tackled the inside of the wall cabinet, Greg. But I think the "McGivers mirror" you seem to be missing had been replaced by a panel by Season Three.

That's a great looking exam room, you really captured the feel. The lighting seems just right for it too.

I'm never going to be able to look at a trombone mute the same again. When I started reading Greg's post on it, I was trying to figure out what it was and a mute did cross my mind. Never noticed them there before.